April 22, 2007 Sermon
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Easter 3 – C
April 22, 2007 Emmanuel, San Angelo
After the events of the first Easter had unfolded we find in today’s gospel what modern scholars say is an appendix to the original book of John. Chapter 21 was probably added later, maybe as late as the second century. In this appendix we see, curiously, that the disciples have apparently disbanded and apparently gone home—back to their families, homes, and business at the Sea of Galilee. One assumes that they were probably waiting for something like the end of the ages to start happening, or the messianic promises to begin unfolding. But who knows? How long does one wait for answers? Days turned into weeks, and into months.
The answer when it did come was altogether new and challenging. For rather than being pulled out of the world or being rescued from the world…they were going to be sent into the world. Transformation was going to come from within rather than from the outside. The apostles were met with immediate persecution, finding that life was not going to be a piece of cake. The same fate which had befallen their leader was now waiting for them, at the hands of people like Paul (in the NT reading). But from then on the message of this Christ spread throughout the world.
As I read from these ancient texts, Acts, John, and of course Revelation, I never cease to be baffled and mystified. This is hardly the stuff of enlightened, rational people of today. Miraculous appearances? Instant conversion? Dreams of living creatures with seven horns and seven eyes? Good grief! This is the stuff of tent-revivals and TV church preachers not mainline Episcopalians. Yet, just when I am about to say “What is in it for me”, I find a key point that must be remembered: that it is not just in the “spectacular” that people’s lives are changed. It is not just in the superficial, or the flashy where Jesus is met, but also in the ordinary, in the day to day: Peter James, Thomas, Nathaniel, John and the others were back with their families, working, engaged in their trade, when Christ was revealed.
Perhaps the disciples were feeling adrift after the death of Jesus. I know I would be. Being adrift comes with any major life change. It usually means that something has gone wrong with your plans. For them it was the loss of their leader. Today it can come with the loss of a job, or with problems at school; a death, a divorce, an out of wedlock pregnancy, financial problems—or just any time you find yourself floating rudderless or aimlessly through life. It has been on my mind this week just how to reconcile the events of the senseless killings in Virginia, and the increasing bloodshed in Iraq. A little bit later in the Eucharist in that part where I chant the Preface—the words
“By his death he has destroyed death, and by this rising to life again he has won for us everlasting life.”
Why is it that sometimes God seems distant, in spite of all his promises to the contrary?
But there is something for us to remember: Sometimes it is only in retrospect, by looking back that we realize it, but the state of being “adrift” after the storms of life usually also comes before we reach landfall. It took crazy John being exiled on Patmos before he finally got his bearings in a vision...Paul was knocked off his horse, and had to walk blindly to town before his direction came...and these disciples, fishing hopelessly in the dark; drifting, drifting, until “just after daybreak” when their answer came.
These guys were lost and now are found. Were blind but now they see. They labored in darkness until “the light of the world” dawned upon them. The 153 fish got their attention but the real miracle was the amazing grace of God. Not just in Jerusalem, but by the lakeshore; and not just by the lakeshore but everywhere and for all time. Jesus took the drifting apostles and brought them ashore. And he does that to this day, which is the Good News of this story.
In the ordinary routines of family and occupation; in the chaos and perplexity that is life; in those times when we find ourselves adrift, searching for meaning and purpose, we meet Christ every day. Barbara Brown Taylor says,
“For those with ears to hear there is a voice that can turn all our dead ends into new beginnings. “Come,” that voice says, “and have breakfast.”
We have but to open the eyes of faith and see—that with the Holy Spirit’s help, we are never left comfortless. As another writer says,
“One moment your problems look too big to be budged, and the next you discover handles on them you never knew were there before. One moment the net looks empty and the next it is not.”
Upon seeing the
teeming fish, and seeing the man on the shore, the beloved disciple cries out,
“It is the Lord!” Just when you thought the story was over…remember this is an
appendix…it begins again.
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Revised: 05/09/07